LOVE OF MONEY.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 December 1855, Page 5

LOVE OF MONEY.

"Money answereth all things," would seem to be the motto of the age. To judge of men's thirst for money, they-have no wants which it will not meet; and one cannot but feel that the hoarding, bargaining, grinding, sharp spirit one sees is not a sin, but the master sin of the 7 age. ' They that will be rich"—that lay themselves out to be rich—scheme to be rich—are intent on being rich—"fall into temptation and into a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perditionand so subtle is the poison, the "love of money," that it causes even the believers "to err from the faith," so that they thus "pierce themselves through with many sorrows.'' So insatiable is this covetousness, that it increases with that which ought to satisfy it ; and the avaricious heart is one that never says "it is enough." But it goes on "joining house to house, and laying field fc) field," as if there were no God who had forbidden this accumulation, or had pronounced a "woe" against it. Do we not know lamentable instances occasioned by

this sin? how men's hearts are steeled—their sympathies dried up —their natural affections blighted—their honesty destroyed—their religious profession utterly discarded ? What examples does our own day furnish of this insatiable " love of money," in the haste with which men and women are flocking to Australia ! How are all tiie tics of home, of countrj', of kindred, felt as nothing in comparison of the love of gold ! How are dauger and fatigue of the severest kind all compensated by the hope of gold ! How are destitution of the means of grace, and all the evils of a lawless state of society, encountered for the sake of gold !—The Rev- J. TF. Reeve, M.A.